High school science teacher Chris McLeod has been named the 2023 Texas State Secondary Teacher of the Year. Photo Credit: Texas Association of School Administrators
Our students are fortunate to have the most amazing educators leading their instruction. One of these is Chris McLeod, a science teacher from Brazosport, Texas. He has been named his state’s 2023 Secondary Teacher of the Year.
Chris teaches rocket engineering to juniors and seniors at Brazoswood High School in Brazosport Independent School District. In a career that spans 12 years, he has instructed courses in physics, chemistry, engineering, and other sciences. In addition, he has led his school’s student council and teen leadership committee. And as if all that were not enough, he currently serves on a safety review board for the Spaceport America Cup, an international university rocket competition.
Chris says his classroom, a part of his district’s Career and Technical Education program, is a place of collaboration and “organized chaos,” as collaborative learning groups delve into research, design, and construction of their own rockets. During the process, students routinely meet with local industrial and manufacturing businesses while they build their rockets. His students often consult with university rocket-building teams, and they have consistently earned praise on the research and design of their fully-functioning, high-power hybrid rockets.
“One of the highlights of my year is taking students to NASA for design reviews,” Chris confesses. “Students have spent months coding computer models to predict the dynamic behavior of a rocket. However, they still have a hurdle to cross before building anything—a full-fledged review with an engineering panel at the Johnson Space Center. In this moment, those students must prove their work to the professionals. No classroom, no lecture, no teacher help—it is student and engineer, discussing, planning, and proving their system with people currently working to send astronauts back to the moon. How cool is that?” he continues.
But Chris insists that the students’ projects have value beyond the awards. “This really isn’t about the rocket,” he asserts.”Yes, we want to set records. Yes, we want to get really good at engineering skills,” he says. “But the real focus here is that we build collaborators, problem-solvers, and world builders,” he concludes.
This honored educator earned his Bachelor’s degree in Marine Science from Texas A&M University. To read more about Chris McLeod, see this article published by The Facts.
